


A Tale Of Two Christmases

by fengirl88



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221b Ficlets, Angst, Christmas, Fluff, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-02
Updated: 2010-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-13 11:53:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fengirl88/pseuds/fengirl88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two 221b ficlets about Christmas from John Watson's point of view.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tale Of Two Christmases

**2009**

He’d have been better off spending Christmas in the hospital ward, and that’s saying something. He knows what that’s like, doesn’t joke about it. But this is worse.

Harry’s place is the most godawful tip, even worse than usual. She’s obviously been going in for retail therapy on a grand scale since the split with Clara and there is _literally_ nowhere to sit down. Not till he’s cleared a pile of DVDs off one of the chairs, that is.

She’s spent a fortune on food, as usual, and as usual she isn’t eating any of it. Pushes the food round her plate, hides smoked salmon under the watercress, picks at tiny bits of whatever game bird that is. Christmas arrived in a courier’s box and it was left to John to assemble it while Harry drank.

After lunch Harry rings Clara and he tries not to hear how her bluster collapses into pleading, then turns to abuse again. He doesn’t know whether to be furious with her for wasting her best chance of happiness or envious that she _had_ one to waste.

Who would want him now, after all? An ex-Army doctor with no prospects and a string of injuries: wrecked shoulder, intermittently shaky left hand, and a possibly psychosomatic limp. Not to mention officially - in layman’s terms - _stark staring bonkers_.

 

 **2010**

“I don’t know _why_ you agreed to look after that dog,” Sherlock grumbles.

“Mrs Gregson’s nephew was desperate,” John says. “Wait - what’s that smell?”

“Fuck!” Lestrade grabs the big saucepan currently buckling on the stove. “Sherlock, you tosser, don’t you know _anything_ about how much water to put in the bottom of a steamer?”

Stupid question. Obviously the answer’s no.

But at least the Christmas pudding itself is unharmed, and somehow, God knows how, they get it all on the table more or less at the right time, and it’s really not half bad, considering.

For once, even Sherlock seems to have an appetite, though John suspects he’s also been sneaking bits of turkey to McIntosh, who is now spark out on the hearthrug imitating the action of a haggis. He hopes Mrs Gregson won’t take it out on her nephew if the dog has indigestion.

Lestrade and Sherlock are swapping their favourite grisly murder cases from the eighteenth century. Whoever put those Old Bailey Sessions Papers online was a public benefactor, or a public nuisance, depending on your point of view.

John looks at the two people who have changed his life in ways he couldn’t have imagined this time last year.

That was the worst of times, he thinks, that Christmas with Harry. And this? This is the _best_.


End file.
